A few days after Amber’s mysterious death, King Slate declared that there would be another attack on Ember’s kingdom the following day. Shocked at the extreme short-notice, Fleck hurried away at the next chance she got to report this to Ember.
“Ember, do you read me?” she meowed, gasping for air like a dying fish.
“I’m here,” came the casual reply of her king. “What is it that you want?”
“Slate,” she spluttered, almost incoherently. “King Slate is planing to attack you and your kingdom tomorrow at sunset.”
“Ha! We’ll be ready for those fools!” Ember cried defiantly. “Its a lucky thing that you got us The Motherlord ammunition and keep on bringing us guns. Boy’ll they be surprised when they find us armed to the teeth with their own weapons! Ha ha ha ha! I’m sure gonna have a laugh when I see the looks on their faces...”
“This is no time to laugh!” Fleck snapped, greatly enraged. “You’ve got to start readying your army! You have to press training and reinforce the defenses!”
“Listen, Fleck,” Ember said warningly, his jubilant tone a mere memory, “I don’t have to do anything you tell me to. If you still remember, I’m your king. You are a mere peasant compared to me. And I will not be ordered around by a simple little peasant, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Fleck muttered disdainfully. “Of course not.”
At that, without even biding him farewell, Fleck ripped the earpiece from her hear and flung it to the grassy earth. She stomped out of the brambles like a badger having a fit. Although, she was quite a lot more dangerous in this brooding mood then any badger.
“Here I am,” she raged aloud, “risking my life for that idle-brained fiend, and he calls me a ‘simple little peasant!’ I’m not his servant, and I can abandon him whenever I see fit! And if he wants to laze around all day, if he wants to allow he cats to be slaughtered before his eyes, if he wants to ignore my advise, then that’s his problem! I don’t care anymore!”
At that, Fleck stopped back to the encampment for some battle training, quite eager to channel all of the fuel the anger gave her into her training.
______________________________________________________________________
“All right, guards! It’s time to fight, so suit up!” Fleck heard Slate call to the guards gathered below the ash tree where he stood.
“Hey,” Ginger said, nudging Fleck playfully but painfully in the shoulder with her gun, “you did a pretty awesome and vicious job training yesterday. One, that was real cool. And two, I hope that you do just as good a job on those Ember cats today.”
Fleck nodded grimly in reply. She wasn’t really going to hurt the cats of Ember’s empire, but she knew that she would have to come close if she were to convince her fellow guards that she was on their side.
“Okay, guys!” Stinger said, smiling kindly as she spoke. “This is gonna be the last battle. It has to be! Mudsplash has recovered, so our number is greater now. And these cats are without any sophisticated weapons! We can’t lose! So grab you’re guns, and let’s fight!”
Fleck couldn’t help but feel amused at this, even though she felt that she and Stinger were close friends. No sophisticated weapons indeed!
“Shoot to kill?” Jade asked eagerly, reloading her huge gun, The Destroyer.
“Er, shoot to kill,” Stinger replied uncertainly. He was new to the war and hadn’t ever been told why they were fighting. If things had gone only slightly differently, he could be on Ember’s side!
“Yeah!” Jade, Ginger, and Frost all called simultaneously up in raucous, overexcited reply.
By then, all of the cats present had chosen their guns and strapped on their medal arms. In the blink of an eye, the had dashed away, leaving noting but a trail of churned dust in their wake. Soon, the empire's building were visible, if only as dark smudges on the horizon. The guards squinted against the midday sunlight, Stinger and Frost in the lead; closely followed by Ginger, Jade, and Fleck; with Mudsplash bringing up in the rear. As they got closer, slowing their pace as that they could regain some of the energy lost durning the long run, they could see an additional silhouette towering almost as high as the buildings.
“What is that?” Ginger inquired, ears flattened.
“I-I think that its a huge gun!” Stinger swallowed, halting as he said this with tail bristling and fur standing on end.
Fleck easily recognized The Motherlord by her intimidating appearance. She could see at least a dozen cats milling nearby the oversized gun, several of them showing signs that they had noticed the small group of guards. Singer wasn’t the only one that had stopped. Everyone else had also, gazing at The Motherlord with either fear, curiosity, or a mix of both. Everyone, that is, save Jade.
Jade was still walking forth in a brisk, dazed gait. “That is one mother gun,” she muttered longingly as she stared at it in awed admiration. “What I would give to have that gun...”
“Jade!” Ginger scolded, ears pressed back. She looked more interested then afraid, but still slightly intimidated.
As Ginger was the only one among them that was strong enough to dare attempt dragging Jade, she did so. Finally, she had pulled her back into the group. It was a truly remarkable feet.
“Okay, guys,” Stinger said seriously once they had all drawn their attention away from The Motherlord. “Now, I know that this is a bit of a surprise and that this battle is gonna get a whole lot more dangerous with ‘em havin’ this giant gun. But ‘know what? We’re braver then these yellow-bellied fiends, and we’re gonna win this battle no matter what.
“Now, remember, we are not gonna give up. Press foreword and remember what you’re fighting for! Not just for this piece of land, but for your friend, your fellow guards! We’ll a b’killed if we don’t win, and that’s gonna be our drive, not our fear and weakness, right? Y’all with me?”
“Yeah!” Ginger cried. “It’s kill or be killed, and we girls are real good at killing!” She ended this with relish, eyes glinting.
“Uh, that’s the spirit!” Stinger said weakly, trying to sound as exited about killing as Ginger, abut utterly failing.
With a new firry vigor, the guards pounded forward, even normally-timid Mudsplash looking determined. But as they charged forth, tragedy struck. Before any of the cats could blink an eye, The Motherlord fired at them with a sound like the deepest tremor of thunder. The blazing red-hot cannonball shot like a comment from the gaping maw of The Motherlord. It shot unsuspecting Frost square in the chest, causing scarlet blood to well from the wound. Frost tumbled to the ground, blazing blue eyes glazed and unseeing.
Even though Fleck had never felt that much of a connection with Frost, she still felt hot tears burn in the corners of her eyes. She was responsible for this horrible death. Even viscous Frost didn’t deserve such a bloody end. No one did.
After briefly halting to wipe away the tears that had been threatening to pour down her cheeks, Fleck continued to charge towards the empire with her fellow guards. A fire burned deep within her, causing Fleck to spur herself forward. Her tender pads felt raw from pounding the earth so hard, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was winning this. She couldn’t let them win...
Fleck had to halt her mind for a moment to remind herself that she was on Ember’s side. Whether she liked it or not, these ‘enemy’ cats were her people, the very cats that she had grown up with. She couldn’t just kill friends, if distant ones, for some lost cat on the attacking side. This statement caused the blazing fire within her to sputter a bit.
And though she didn’t like it much, it was the truth. She wouldn’t--in fact, she couldn’t--harm the cats from her own kingdom. It wasn’t right. And yet, she still felt torn. Fleck knew the foe better then the friend. It already felt as though she had grown up with her tomboy, headstrong friends Ginger and Jade, even if they were a bit malevolent. Stinger was kind and understanding, playful and inspirational all at the same time, making him an extremely good leader. Mudsplash was mellow and timid, unlike Slate’s cats were normally made out to be. And though she hated to admit it, she would miss Frost’s sarcastic, gloatingly violent nature.
Shaking her head to clear it, she pressed forth, the same thought running though her mind as in everyone else’s. If she got close enough to The Motherlord, close enough to be out of range, then she would be safe, if only form The Motherlord. Even though she was on Ember’s side, she knew that her fellow cats might aim improperly or just be unable to recognize her.
Once Ember’s cats were within range, a barrage of bullets hailed down upon both sides. Fleck suppressed an agonized scream of pain and rage as a bullet embedded itself deep into her still-recuperating leg. I’m on your side! she wanted to shout.
Dashing forward with a newly pronounced limp, forgetting her place in a red haze of pain and maddened anger, she allowed red-hot bullets to escape from her gun, unknowingly killing many of her past comrades. Her brain was numbed with pain, and all she could feel was the hot blood pouring down her leg and forming a pool at her crinsom-stained paws. Looking at the her mangled leg, she felt a sickened felling lurch in her stomach. Digging her claws into the ground, she continued to fire, attempting to ignore the searing pain.
Fleck could see Ginger, Jade, and Mudsplash wading through the enemy cats. Her friends had their jaws set in determination. A few paces ahead of them was Stinger, who cut bravely through the enemy lines, looking anything but afraid and shouting orders to his companions.
Fleck watched in horror as a fair-sized bullet hit Jade in the middle of her chest. Jade merely pulled it roughly out with a smirk on her face, looking almost pleased. The she-cat then spat it onto the ground, liked her lips, and shook herself, scattering scarlet droplets of blood to the earth. In horrified shock, Fleck dashed over to her good friend, trembling a little in fear for Jade’s life.
“I’m okay,” Jade muttered casually as she reloaded her gun and shot randomly into the fray, slightly smiling and face relaxed in a sort of bored way, just as always.
Fleck wanted to say, “But you got shot in the middle of your chest.” Instead, she found that she had lost her voice. Fleck mutely gestured to the ragged hole in Jade’s chest with her tail, mouth slightly agape with shock. How could anyone possibly live though getting shot in the chest?
“Heh. This little thing? Don’t worry about me, I can’t be killed that easy. No, these puny little cats couldn’t kill me if the shot me five times! I’m a warrior, I can’t be bothered by something this small,” Jade said, shooting an attacking cat square in the face to punctuate the end of her sentence.
Turning away soundlessly and still in a shock, Fleck nodded slightly and fired into the fray, missing all of Ember’s cats on purpose. Sooner then she had expected, the battle was over.
“What happened this time?” Fleck inquired, dashing up over to Stinger, titling her head in question.
Stinger looked mildly annoyed, but also a bit concerned. “Jade got shot in the chest! And guess what she did then? She kept right on fighting! I mean, I respect her for her bravery and all, but honestly! That was a wound that would kill any cat other then her, and maybe Ginger. I can’t let her just fight when she’s mortally wounded. So we’ll have to just retreat, although I hate to do it.”
Fleck nodded. She would do and risk anything for the welfare of her friend. “Let’s go, then.”
At that, the guards left the bloody battlefield, followed by a very disgruntled Jade.
-KittyLover8
© 2013
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